Hi, I am trying to get started in 2D game programming under visual C++. I have had alot of experience with more recent 3D game programming (Uscript and C objects; UT, UT2003) and some limited VB6.0 (most useless language ever, lol). I was playing some 2D dos games recently, and got some inspiration for writing more up-to-date versions of my favorite games in visual C++. Dont know where to begin though, can you point me to some tutorials on writing 2D sprite based games in C++ or personally lend a hand? Please bear in mind that I know almost nothing about writing games from scratch, especially 2D ones. Thanks.

The wizards at this side have heard this question many, many times... and have put together a great collection of information for budding indi game developers:

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/start_here/